This post first appeared on Ren’s Patreon page.
A single table lamp glows in the corner, reflecting off the padded walls. The padding is to deaden the sound, but it could equally be to deal with the insanity which is never far away when you’re watching short clips of a show over and over again, making the tiniest changes to the audio.
Dale works his way through every hit and block in 203’s fight scene, searching through libraries for the three or four sounds (maybe something metallic, the cloth, a squelch and a swish) that work perfectly with each one. Jesse sits on the sofa with another laptop and his headphones on, slowly but surely adding the footsteps to every scene in the episode. Just another Friday night mixing Ren.
A few days ago we summoned Ivan over from Norfolk just to re-record his ‘effort’ sounds for the fight. He even provided his own knuckle-cracking sound effect (though not using his knuckles).
The visual side of Season Two was completed a couple of weeks ago, when Mara Ciorba sent over the final version of the colour grade. The previous version was perfect… until I spotted a faint red reflection from the back of a parked car in one of Ren’s close-ups. On Team Ren, attention to detail is everything.
I’ll be honest; I had hoped to have the season out by now, but on the Cheap/Fast/Good triangle you can never have all three corners.
As well as the ongoing sound and music, work continues in other areas. I’ve been compiling a list of press outlets to spam about the series when it’s released, I’ve been testing the software that will make the Digital Cinema Package for the cast and crew screening, and I’ve been editing the BTS videos that will come out after each episode is released. I’ve also sat down with Ross and planned out the broad schedule for the year; given that I want to shoot Season Three this summer, certain aspects of prep have to start happening pretty soon. In fact, I’ve already started picking the directors for the five episodes, and confirmed the returning cast members.
The peripheral work continues too. Last weekend Steph Swan kindly recorded two more audiobooks, Water to the Well and The Trader from Helgoth, which Tavern Dwellers will get to hear over the coming months. Several people are now assisting Steph with our social media efforts, including Duncan Hallett who is developing our brand new TikTok account.
As I write the last part of this blog I am on a train to Norwich. There’s a networking event happening there tonight which might yield some useful contacts for the future, but I also plan to visit several of the city’s historic buildings to see if any might be suitable for Season Three or indeed beyond.
On Saturday I’ll be back in the padded room, debating how squelchy a hit should be or whether you need to hear the swooshing of a blade. Plenty more details to attend to yet.